The NATO Defense College Hosts a Workshop on Resilience

On 7 June 2017, the NATO Defense College hosted a high-level workshop entitled “Enhancing resilience in NATO and beyond”. The workshop gathered experts from European institutions, NATO HQ, the NATO StratCom Centre of Excellence, the Marshall Center and the Joint Multinational Simulation Centre to discuss the importance of resilience for NATO and its partners, in view of the multidimensional security challenges facing Europe.

The discussion was divided into two panels: the first addressed areas of cooperation between the EU and NATO for enhancing resilience; the second analysed related activities in the information, military and energy domains. Speakers agreed that NATO and the EU understand the concept of resilience differently. While NATO sees it as a basis for credible deterrence and defence, the EU approach incorporates partners and the EU’s neighbourhood into its institutional framework on resilience. The key conclusions of the workshop included statements on further partnership between the EU and NATO in areas of potential cooperation. The importance of training and exercises, as well as for greater civilian-military cooperation, was highlighted. Additionally, enhancement of resilience in the energy and information domains was discussed. Panellists agreed that there are many opportunities in these domains, where practical cooperation should be stepped up.